Muse

Before we say goodnight, I just want to take a moment to address any perceptions out there regarding bias in my reporting. In divided times such as these, I'm reminded of one of my great heroes, Walter Cronkite. Because of him, I have the integrity to stay firmly impartial. He gave me a gift I can never repay, a $25 gift card to coconuts. If only I had used it before all their

locations closed tbtl i've seen it coming for years i've worried about it i hoped with all my heart i wouldn't experience it i wouldn't see it but it's now here what's even the point

in this freaking podcast doesn't even make sense why would anybody listen to it i yell at you

because i love you you listen to me because you love me is this a weird dynamic yeah sure from

the outside you know what dude we can make a lot of money on this if you're making these out of

thin air i mean there's no overhead we're gonna be rich oh my god one hundo a day both of us

500 a week that's rich that's it well all right hello good morning and welcome everyone to a thursday edition of tbtl the show that just might be too beautiful to live i just want to talk it has nothing to do with mating my name is luke burbank i am your host i cannot believe he just told that joke coming to you from the south side of chicago not really i think i'm in the probably middle side of chicago but seemed like a fun thing to say here on episode 4017 in a collector's series let the fun begin we have uh much to talk about on this thursday including a big part of my childhood from an olfactory standpoint and um i thought they smelled bad on the outside uh and i do mean factory i'm putting the factory and olfactory when it comes to um things that have changed in the pacific northwest or will soon be changing that impact me and my memories and that is so important also it's important that you hear my new favorite musician on the internet i'll say what's up dope appears to be like a miniature italian greyhound maybe named lemon we'll get into that also it's a thursday aka blurs day so we'll do the blurs days and we'll talk to this guy the longest running co-bro of the show maybe best known for his depictions of The tall ships, the grace, their splendor, and all that intricate rigging.

I don't know who that is, and I don't care to find out.

He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Good morning, Luke. I'm going to think if I have anything interesting to tell you. It's like just a phone call.

I have so much uninteresting to tell you.

Okay, good. All right, what do you got? Where do you want me to start?

First of all, someone's been chewing the pencil in this hotel room, and I don't like it. That's my job.

What do you mean somebody's been chewing the pencil? Does that mean you went to bed and it was not chewed, but you woke up and it was chewed? Like, they're actively chewing on it while you're in the room.

We can't rule that out as of right now. But definitely, I didn't do any recon last night when I got here very late last night. As anyone who watches the Hey Dummy videos will tell. You want to know what it looks like when a Luke records a Hey Dummies video at about, oh, I don't know, maybe 1 a.m. after, I don't know, about four winds on the airplane? watch the newsletter this week you'll really enjoy it I didn't do a sweep of the room but what I can tell you is that when I picked this pencil up to write down a few notes about the show, about the uninteresting things I wanted to tell you, I looked at the eraser part, you know where the metal holds the eraser onto the pencil and somebody just went to town on it

that's upsetting, they need to replace

that pencil, is that also a weird human impulse that we have did you ever do that in school, I was a I was a kid who would do that, who would chew on the metal part of where the pencil meets the pencil eraser.

Yeah, I would chew on all parts of the pencil. And also, I remember not liking it. I hated having chewed up pencils. I don't even think I liked the sensation, yet I also couldn't stop myself, I feel like. In fact, as we talk about it now, it's been a long time since I've chomped into a pencil, as you might expect. But I do remember. You know what I think started the chewing on the metal part for me? I don't think that was, I think that was actually with a purpose. I would use the eraser so much that the eraser would wear down. You wanted to push the eraser out more. So if you took your front teeth and you pinched the metal. Front teeth, no. It would pinch the metal and the eraser would poke out a little bit more and you'd get a little bit of extra life out of that. So I would do that. And then the other thing I think was just like maybe a nervous habit, but then you'd have these nasty pencils. But here's what I think is maybe interesting.

A Ticonderoga? maybe

I don't want to use the word interesting here because that's not applicable. But is it trendy to start putting wooden pencils in hotel rooms now?

Yes, very much so.

Because you left a wooden pencil over here the other day, and there was a time when it looked like society was totally done with wooden pencils. Like we have mechanical pencils now. We have machines that can do this better. We're done with wooden pencils. But now is it like the old typewriter craze of the early 2000s?

um it's definitely back for a certain kind of hotel and i'm with you like it's not it's much more i think for show or for affect than for functionality um although this one that i'm holding is round and i bet you the one i left at your place was from the graduate and was it one

of like literal old school like yeah i think it was like it's like a hexagon i think it was a hexagon yeah maybe green or blue or something did you have a pencil fight as a kid a pencil fight No, I don't think so.

This did not make its way to Ohio.

Pencil fight? Maybe. You tell me. Did you tie your hands together and then arm yourself with a pencil in the other hand and fight to the death? Yes, to the death. Oh, okay, yeah. To the pain.

No, what's funny is this didn't make its way to Christian school, so I only learned about it from my friend Peter Williams, who's been making a lot of appearances, at least his name has been making a lot of appearances on the show recently. But what I learned about, he was very into pencil fighting. Like, I don't know if this is what your relationship was like with Tony. Did you and Tony go to the same school for a duration of time?

Yeah, we went to grade school through sixth or seventh grade, I believe.

Peter and I only went to Daniel Bagley Elementary School for maybe one year together. He was one grade ahead of me, and we weren't really friends there. Famously, one time I came over to play with him during, I think, the snow, and somehow later he told me that his mom said to him, or maybe it was somebody said to him, it's that kid you don't like is here. Wow And that was a reference to me So we weren't like buds when we were in school So most of our friendship was He was going to Hamilton Middle School And I was either being homeschooled Or going to Jesus Creek And he would bring home things from school And tell me this is what we're all doing On the bus we're all pencil fighting I'd be like oh really And you would take like a I'm very proud that I do remember this name You know how the pencil was named Ticonderoga

Oh you said that before I didn't know what you were talking about is that is that was written on like the side of a lot of

those like a yellow I think the reason that I because like wasn't it like Teddy Roosevelt and like the Ticonderoga boys or something there was a Ticonder Fort Ticonderoga was a thing but for some reason pencils when I was growing up were also named Ticonderoga I'm looking at them here

this is not this is not sparking a memory for me but you're you're clearly very right about this

and what the kids what i heard was the from peter was the kids on the bus were they would do this thing where you would hold your pencil like you would literally bring a pencil to school and it was like your pencil fighting pencil and the way that you would fight your pencil or battle other people is you would flick you would hold i'm doing it right now with this hotel pencil that's been chewed on you would sort of hold it near like the very like imagine the part of the pencil where the the writing sort of whatever you want to call it implement is the point yeah the point that's a what no the i'm sorry the writing implement andrew use the proper language the ticonderoga

website is really cool because you scroll down you scroll down and then you get to a part of it where the a big part of the website is somebody's hand holding a pencil over a piece of paper and as you scroll down the pencil stays in the same place the paper moves and you're essentially drawing a line down their website well done ticonderoga this is why pencils are back andrew

yes but so you would hold what supposedly you would hold and also a number two pencil that

was a big thing right yeah number two definitely yes for testing it's like you have to have a number two pencil which i don't ever think i had any other kind of pencil except for when you got into probably mechanical pencils but like you ever get a number one or number three like i don't know why we were specifying this i would have been in mensa if i would have had a number two pencil

Andrew I was filling in all those answers with number one

and they were like this kid

needs treatment and I was like oh not enough whatever the lead content of a number two pencil I just didn't we didn't have money for that kind of pencil when I was a kid but so you would hold the Ticonderoga the number two pencil at the very kind of by the point and then you would like flick it on someone else and they would have to hold their pencil kind of crossways and if you broke their pencil so you flicked your pencil onto their pencil which they were holding kind of sacrificially and then whoever cracked the other person's pencil then was the winner of the pencil war

so one person is all always kind of the like the beta sort of or that one person is always on offense and then you

should take turns going correct but not the same person if that makes any sense so it's like you switch off who's okay yeah you switch off who's being the beta yeah sure yeah i should

have gone with offense defense i should have kept what if we did say like if we're talking about like football and we're just like well the side with the quarterback are the alphas and the side without the quarterback are the betas that's a new way of talking about sports actually a really

interesting question who do you think is the alpha of of football is it the defense or the

offense i i it seems like it's the offense like by by definition one is trying to move and the other is trying to stop the movement right yeah but there's something so alpha about like a

defensive line that's true too lineman just absolutely crushing the quarterback would you

be willing microphone in hand to go to the seahawks training facility and interview all of the seahawks defensive linemen and ask them if they think they're betas i believe kyle moody has beat us to that point mooney sorry mooney you ever do a hard time slammer that will occasionally

pop up on like on my tiktok feed and it's like it's so funny but it makes me squirm so hard when And he's like, for some reason I think of it, it's either a San Francisco Giants or a San Diego Padres game, in my mind. It could be neither of those teams. But when he's just like wandering around asking these big meatheads, like doing this real, like, here's the Giants of the Dodgers game.

Talking baseball, hitting, catching, making all the plays happen. Let's talk to it. Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? What's that? Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? I don't know what you're saying, dude. Ever seen them launch your Grand Slams? Oh, Grand Slam, yeah. Of course. Is it real? Is it real? Yeah. It's a real, real great sport. When everybody is around and we're swinging for two long bombs away, How do we come around to know, man, this really is what it's for? Are you high right now? What? Is that a question? Wow, this is the worst interview I've ever had. I'm sorry, man. No problem. Great group of guys.

the funny thing is like Kyle Mooney will go to all different kinds he goes to a racetrack or a monster truck show at one point making these viral videos like forever ago

monster trucks I want to talk about that with you

there's something about the baseball one where the baseball players really come off as jerks and it's always sort of bothered me but then on the other hand Mooney really is trying to he's not trying to make them the butt of the joke but also like what he's doing is kind of jerky

in its own way as well right like he's not he's putting them in an impossible position exactly

like in a way I've seen him do a lot of like this vox poppy kind of stuff where you're going out talking to people and making them uncomfortable it irritates me how mean the baseball players are to him because they all think they're so cool and this guy is a loser but on the other hand though don't they have a right to be a little bit of like he's having a go kind of at them I mean the joke isn't on them though it's not like a late night show where it's kind of like look how dumb america is who was the third president of the united states or what a weird example um but president ticonder rogan and that's right congratulations by the way get ready for the summer games um but uh anyway you know what i mean like yeah they don't he did not earn their respect like why should they be nice to him but yet it irritates me there's only one from that

little like um montage there's only one player who's actually kind of actively rude to him he's going well this is the worst interview i've ever done and then he laughs or maybe it's those two guys yeah they're like yeah well so first things first i'm the realist no um the first thing is in my experience pro baseball players are 100 as a group the most rude sports people that i've that i ever interviewed not all of them there are some wonderful baseball players but they they do tend to be kind of broey to a degree that's different from even football and basketball in my experience um but a lot of them i think are trying to be kind of go along like what and then you know a grand slam yeah of course i've heard of a grand slam but like they're they are trying to kind of go along with him and you're right it's you know what andrew it gets back to this classic alpha beta thing from a beta perspective he's kind of beta trolling them yeah that is

interesting you're right yeah i guess though but again when he does this i do think it's interesting to note or important to note or worthwhile to note that the joke is not on the people you know what i mean like there's a way to go out and do this style of humor but the joke is that you're making the people around you look like idiots and he's really not doing that he's just using them he just needs normal people to act normal so that he can

be funny by being an idiot himself yes but he is and again i love him so much i mean i'm the one that brought this whole thing up it i do think i'm just imagining myself in um this scenario where like i'm going to a gamer and i don't know who kyle mooney is i don't understand the bit and he's just like what's the thing you and i would go to that's not a mariner's game

because we would obviously do that um something that's about the extent of our relationship what about what about a tbtl event that would be okay so everyone's lining up outside the neptune

And he's really just great, just a show of shows. And he's talking to me and you. I don't know how I would respond. I think my instinct would be to try to go with it. But also, I think I would be as befuddled as a couple of these guys. Hopefully, a little less bro-y. But you're right. The joke is sort of not on those people. But you need the people who are being interviewed to be clueless. And uncomfortable a little bit. And uncomfortable.

Yeah, no, that's definitely true.

all right let's um let's talk about a couple of things that made me very uncomfortable recently like as in yesterday you know how um i painted my way out of my house yeah which i literally did yesterday by the way we will see when i get home tomorrow how that all

went and the the paint was dry enough as you tiptoed out of there yesterday i was i also had

a um towel down that i just sacrificed i was like i'm gonna step on this towel and if it gets some some slate colored floor paint on it so be it i'm surprised though but wouldn't that have ruined

the paint on the floor if indeed the floor was still tacky wouldn't the wouldn't the towel there

was one there was literally one probably not even square foot one like six inch by six inch area that didn't have paint on it oh but i couldn't step on it because it was the red kind of dust and if i stepped on it and then i stepped on the new paint the new paint would have the red dust on it if that makes any sense it does so it was it was it was literally touch and go getting out of there but anyways as i was painting my way out of the house and everything i was racing down to portland because i was gonna get on this flight uh a flight to come out here to chicago for wait wait don't tell me which i'm going to be doing tonight but also i had to stop in portland and interview well it was on zoom but i needed a place in portland that i could set up my computer and have a decent internet connection and record an interview with Maria Bamford who has a new book out that's very funny by the way called sure I'll join your cult and uh so I did that at Becca's house and uh I got all set up I ran in there uh got my little microphone I had like say the interview was 30 minutes I had 33 minutes that I could be in that apartment so three minutes to set up the gear 30 minutes to talk to maria bamford and then one minute to kiss becca on the forehead and run out and uh i realized about eight minutes into the interview andrew that i wasn't recording jesus dude it was like a stress i would have rather had been naked on zoom than not record elena passarello um the co-host of the show who is currently starring in a play by the way in pittsburgh if you're a yinzer if you're in pittsburgh it closes this weekend go see elena it's a two-person play it was on broadway and it's now gone to pittsburgh and elena is one of the two people in this two-person play and if you ask me the name of

it andrew i'll fight you because i don't remember it i would love to know but i don't want you to

break my pencil i assumed you meant i would have been such a beta on pencil fighting i would not I did not do well because there was a trick to it I learned from Peter that was outlawed where you could – you were not allowed to do a thing where you bowed your pencil up. So let's say you were being the beta, the recipient.

So you're supposed to be just holding it by the tip straight.

No, you're supposed to be holding it so like the pencil is going – your hands are like – imagine you're doing like a robot hand. Like your hands are robot hands. Okay. So thumbs on top. Yeah, okay. You know, fingers, like, fingers and thumbs upside down, or straight up and down. And then you hold the pencil between underneath both of your thumbs and over your, like, index finger, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. But there were some kids that would try to bow their pencil. They would flex their pencil up, which I guess would make it much harder to snap it. Oh, interesting. If you were being the, like, you know, if you were receiving the fight. Fight, the pencil fight? Sure, yeah, if you were receiving. Also, you could potentially, I mean, if you wanted to get into it, like fashion a metal, like a little metal pole as a pencil, like in like a workshop at home or something. You know what I mean? Paint it yellow. You could do that. That would probably be cheating, though. Probably, as I say.

But that would also be very cool. I would, you know what, I would buy that. I'm sure there's somebody on TikTok right now who is making perfect recreations of a number two Ticonderoga pencil, but it's metal. And it's painted to look exactly like the sort of disposable thing we grew up with, but in fact it has a lot of value.

And it's like a Rocky montage, but instead of running upstairs or punching meat or whatever, you're in the shop kind of shaving down. Grinding. Grinding. There are sparks going all over the place. There's soldering happening.

You have like a welding mask, but it's up and it's covered in grease for some reason.

No, no, no. It's down, but then you flip it up.

at one point yes exactly thank you yeah no you're absolutely i wish i had my my bell here i would

you ever do the thing you ever wear a welding mask you ever do the thing where i've never worn a welding mask the i i have worn them i mean when they're covering your face it's like it's not like wearing sunglasses it's like complete darkness like it really totally shuts everything out because the arc of the weld is so dang bright that you don't see but it bends towards justice But it bends towards justice and parts washers, if my if my training was correct. So but you would see the professionals, they'd have it on top of their head, like, you know, not covering their face. But then when it's time to weld, just they flip that like head nod, nod your head forward and it slides. So freaking boss. Yeah, definitely.

I always get nervous if I'm like walking by a construction site where someone is welding and they're wearing the mask. But I'm looking at the arc And I'm like are we all supposed to have masks For this?

Well they are closer to it but it is like the sun right?

Right I'm just like You have a mask on for this I don't but I'm looking at it Is this bad? You shouldn't look at that Anyway so I Andrew when I tell you That I did not know what to do There are so many people involved in this We hired someone to do the tape sync We hired an independent radio producer to go to Maria Bamford's house.

Oh, okay, yeah. There were. Okay, yeah, so in a certain way, that's good. Now, I do want to hear this story, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but...

I mean, I gave you most of it. I just forgot to start the recording.

I mean, so you forgot to start the recording that would only record your side, and while I don't think this is great journalistic practice, if you know exactly what you asked and you have a good recording that a professional recorded of Maria in her location, you can re-ask those questions on the tape and splice it together right

I guess you're right I guess it was better that that recording was clean Maria Bamford in you know in Pasadena or Altadena technically now everyone knows where Maria Bamford lives so just use that information wisely please you're right that's better because we can't call Maria Bamford and go can you pretend respond to like five of Luke's questions I guess if it came down to it I could have tried to fake re-record my questions but it was just like you know this working in in radio like i never do that it's like literally the worst case scenario you just look down and you realize and there was because we did a clap we do a clap we haven't part of it is we haven't done one of these in a long long time like since the pandemic was sort of abated um or whatever phase of the pandemic we're in i sort of haven't we just haven't done a lot of these zoom interviews we did this one because maria bamford's a big deal she wrote a book she wasn't going to be in portland we thought it was worth it to hire someone to go record her but like i was rusty man because we did a whole clap we did this whole thing and then as i'm going to the first break i look down and just realize i'm not recording on the mix pre and i'm not recording on garage band and i immediately formulated a lie in my mind like i'm sorry garage band crap like my first thought was like can I lie my way out of this and then I realized no I can't and also why would I and so then I did the rest of the interview knowing that when it was all done I was gonna say and by the way everyone I wasn't recording can we please do the first five minutes of the interview again

together and that's what you did that's exactly what I did as opposed to stopping because you already had you are you just got rolling yeah so you basically had a choice there well you had a few choices you had the one that I just mentioned that didn't didn't even pop into your head and also like you say it's not a it's not a great solution like re-recording something and there's something about that that gives me pause i don't kind of love that yeah it doesn't it doesn't feel

totally above board it does if you're trying to present a kind of a natural conversation right

now this is a book interview you're not like interviewing the president The president of the United States or something and probably be fine. But you also could have in the moment just said, OK, you know what? Shoot. I got to let everybody know I'm not recording on my end. Can we start over right now? And you just redo the five minutes. But you're like, no, let's just get through this. Also, was it the type of thing where you were just starting to get into a rhythm? So you wanted to keep that rhythm going and then come to the end. Then at the end, you can sort of you've already warmed up and everything. And it's easier to redo the beginning of the interview once you guys have known each other for 20 minutes.

Not really. But can I just get real with you, Andrew?

Yeah.

Here's the thing. I am a huge fan of Maria Bamford's comedy. And this book is really funny, by the way. And like I just and I've, you know, had occasion to meet her very briefly. And Maria Bamford is just an amazing special person and one of my favorite entertainers in the world. I will say this, though. The stuff about her kind of like the things that Maria Bamford talks about a lot about her discomfort in the world and her difficulties kind of socializing at times. It's not an affect.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, that makes any sense.

Like it is not like it's kind of in a certain way. It's sort of in style these days to just be like, oh, I'm taking a menti B. like a mental break like you know i'm not trying to diminish anyone's mental health journey but like there's a certain kind of person who i think maybe is a little bit cavalier around mental health stuff and kind of like using it as maybe a way of of seeming more interesting in the world that is

not what's going on with maria bamford yeah no i would imagine that's kind of why i asked that question because i could imagine that being an interview that is maybe a little bit hard to kind to get rolling into like i said get into a rhythm which is why once you're in that rhythm stopping that rhythm and saying okay we got to stop and start over makes less sense than saying let's keep this ball rolling to whatever degree you got the ball rolling to like kind of keep it rolling

and then none of that we do it and you're absolutely right and really the issue is more control for me than anything like the thing about interviewing somebody like maria bamford is maria bamford is going to be maria bamford and she is not going to and she is again really one of the kindest people i've ever gotten to talk to for my radio job stuff um but so it's like none of it is like it's all coming from such a good place and just a genuine place but like maria bamford is really um she's just unique to talk to and it was like there were just so many times where i thought i'm not controlling this right now like i'm not in control of this work we're not like we're not kicking the hacky sack back and forth in a way that it feels familiar to me you know so i so i kind of thought like let's just i didn't think starting over again in the middle of the interview after the first break was going to be was going to make things you know flow more smoothly right that makes sense and none of that is a none of that is a commentary about maria bamford it's just it's really because it's like i know how these interviews tend to go it's like everybody shows up you made this reference the other day but it's sort of like the the coyote and the sheepdog right just punching in like it's punching in yeah doing our thing i mean hopefully being interesting and saying some things it's like everyone kind of knows their job they show up we all do it and then you know right when it's going to get interesting then the whistle blows andrew and it's like then then the interview's done um that's not how it goes when you're talking to somebody like maria bamford and uh and again that's less about her and more about my desperate need for

control do you want a quasi hot take from me about this type of recording please the clap is a little extra you don't need the clap oh i totally agree like i you know i have done a million tape syncs and then piece them together later like all you have to do i think i couldn't love you more all you have to do is find the hello thanks for being here and the other person saying thanks for having me you line that up you check a couple more points and he i guess if you're you had three people on the line so maybe it's a little bit more helpful if you get into four or five different people like tracks that you're gonna have to all line up later sure having one big like clappy like audio like basically for people who don't know what we're talking about of course everybody knows what we're talking about right i mean this is so in the weeds but let's say in this case you have elena am i saying her name right yep okay you have elena in one place you have you in one place you have maria in another place and so you're all individually recording yourselves i assume and so at some point somebody says okay everybody get rolling and then at some point a producer is gonna have to take all three of those tracks and then line them up in on three different rows of an audio editing program and you know a classic thing especially i think when you're syncing up video in audio yes a clap might really help yeah exactly because then and that's

a lot harder to match up and i know that from doing these video projects that we've been doing for tbtl i have a sort of a malfunction in my system where i often have to realign the video in the audio because it's out of sync and that i mean that's just a that's just sort of a a ghost in the machine on my end um that has something to do with the the program that i use too but anyway having put all that aside like that is a little bit more tricky and so if you have a visual like clapping that you can then line up the audio with the visual that would be helpful but i sort of feel like that's the type of thing that people kind of think is cool from like making pictures and then they apply it to like a simple tape sync and audio and you just

don't need it yesterday when and again everybody that i work with is just so phenomenal it sounds like i'm just being trying to be like i don't know just overly complimentary but really and Surely the folks that I work with on that show are so phenomenal and have saved my bacon multiple times where like I had a bad line. It was crackling. And then they went in and like did all kinds of, you know, audio saves and stuff. I mean, these are real audio professionals I'm working with. That being said, yesterday, after I had to admit, everyone, sorry, I wasn't recording the beginning. Can we do the beginning over again? Somebody piped up and I was like, but can we do another clap? And my thought was, yeah, but we could also just go with my voice stops, Maria Bamford voice starts. I think we'll probably, I think we, because you know what? I have synced up so much tape in my life on GarageBand or in Audacity or wherever. And it's like you just have one person's talking, you see the wave, and then the person they're talking to starts talking. And you put their answer roughly after the first person's question. And then guess what? It's pretty much synced up.

Yeah, you can sync it up. Again, if you're starting to deal with many, many, many tracks, I understand that. But certainly a tape sync between two and maybe even three people, I just think it's a little bit like we do this thing. There are other little things that we just learn coming up in public radio too that you probably don't need that. You don't need to go through all of the, I don't know, all of the setup, but producers, and I am a producer, by the way, so I throw myself into this lot. I'm not trying to be mean to fellow producers, but there's also just certain things that we do because we like to be producers and act like producers.

You know, my favorite thing is, I'm not even kidding. I love it when I'm on a shoot where they say soft sticks. That's like a producer telling the person doing the sticks, which is that, you know, classic kind of Hollywood thing, that little time code guy, like telling them not to do it too loud because it's near the actor's face. Soft sticks, everybody. Okay, Soft Sticks, I love that. That's the most Hollywood my life ever gets.

Wait, you like it, or you think it's a little extra?

I like it because it feels like something's really happening.

Okay, gotcha.

It feels like I'm on the set of Avatar.

Well, do you want me to start the show like that? Would you mind, Andrew? You know what I thought about? I think about this sometimes. I've never uttered this to any person in my life. It's a dorky thing. But I think starting probably, and I'm sure you noticed this when it started happening, and now it's a habit that I think is actually good for me. Maybe you think this is extra, but when we got in the habit of pre-recording shows, maybe for summer games or winter games like five years ago or something, I started doing something that I didn't used to do when we started recording, which is I would kind of slate the beginning of it. Okay, we're recording. This is TBTL for Tuesday. Like, what would be next Tuesday? September? No, let's say this is TBTL pre-record for Tuesday, the 29th of August. it's summer game number two because when we're recording a bunch of shows in a row that i need to post later that's hugely helpful to me but that habit then carried over to me doing that on the daily so when we do our daily show i'd like today like moments before we started recording i said okay ready we did all of our audio check and i say all right this is tbtl for uh thursday august 24th um you stand by and uh that is generally not needed for a day of recording but it does help in case i get my files mixed up i can quickly hit play and realize what i'm listening to but what i should have been doing years and years and years ago is well no i shouldn't have been doing this but i think it maybe could have been interesting i delete that right away i don't keep an unedited version of tbtl with all of our banter or whatever no i just take that file i edit out the bullshit i clip the beginning clip the end and i post it because i don't want to be saving double the amount of storage space just so that i can have you know a record of what we said during the break or whatever so um but it would have been fun to put together a montage of five years of me slating

every single show in a row well the reason i love it is because it makes me think we're the beatles yeah we are the beatles and i feel like that if we if we were gonna if someday that There was the like the previously unreleased TBTL. It's like you saying, you know, the show number and slating it. It's like it's like, you know, John Lennon saying something right before the song. Yeah. You know, it's I that's why I love it. It feels like an outtake to me that I'm hearing, except now I hear it's really an outtake.

It's really it's I've taken it to the recycle bin. I often think of us as sort of the Beatles of rock and roll.

Hello and welcome to Top Story. but what it means is that the so-called aroma of Tacoma will no longer be the case although it had been diminished pretty greatly already like I think there's a lot of good like scrubbers and you know things that kind of um have you know mitigated the smell of a pulp mill but when I was a kid man and when I was watching almost live certainly but also when I would just be driving through Tacoma going to the festival of the sun in Vancouver Washington by the way sun spelled s-o-n as in the son of god um festival of the sun it's so funny i mean it's a way homer knowing

knowing your family and their religion that makes sense but of course i was picturing it like some sort of a um not be not wiccan but yeah very like kind of a hippie festival a lot of flowy

the opposite of that no no yeah very much so very very um you know very much about the patriarchy and the Jesus in a very certain interpretation, but the Festival of the Sun. But anyway, as we would be, we drove through Tacoma a lot when I was growing up and you would notice the smell of Tacoma on I-5. This is in the 80s. Before you would get there and in the car, everybody would remark, it's the aroma of Tacoma. It felt like the first really cool joke I was in on as a kid.

Do you remember that you and I got a little whiff of it just the last time we drove through Tacoma together in the van to

pick up the lunchbox and i think i i believe i said to you the aroma of tacoma certainly did yes but um that pulp mill is uh shutting down and so uh that and again i want to be careful because tacoma is a actually pretty rad town where a lot of our listeners live and if if i were like living in the seattle area still and had reason to be there but was looking for a slightly different version of life i would very much consider living in tacoma i think tacoma is just a very very cool place so i don't want to diminish it to uh just a place where you know it used to smell like a pulp mill but it was a big thing in my childhood to make that joke as i would drive through now here's what i noticed the company that owns that pulp mill which of course is some gigantic i think they're like a georgia-based you know conglomerate they have i mean unfortunately they're laying off I think it's around 400 people, so that sucks. But they're building or they're opening a cardboard processing facility in, wait for it, Andrew, Longview, Washington, which is, guess what, just up the river from my house.

Oh, right, okay.

Yesterday I almost Googled, what does cardboard smell like when they're making it? I'm not even kidding. That's interesting. Are they is the is the aroma of Tacoma moving to the or the strong view of Longview and will it be wafting down the mighty Columbia towards me the pew pew of Longview the strong pew of Longview and and will it be making its way to me because there's already a there's a I think they call it the fiber plant or something but there's like a there's already one pulp mill down there in Longview. And you know what's really interesting Is well first of all After I had sort of bought The house And after I learned that they weren't going to put a Two billion dollar methane capture Facility like in front of it Which was Which was the weirdest thing It was like a train almost hitting you That you didn't even know was coming And you just stopped to look at something else And it goes Past you and you're like I wasn't afraid of that train before But now in retrospect I'm terrified of it

I didn't know that train existed.

I didn't know that train existed, and now I'm so—I can't believe that train didn't kill me. Yeah, right. That was the methane capture thing. But the other thing was I know that Longview had at least one, maybe at some point two, big kind of pulp mills because it's right on the water and there's a lot of lumber around and stuff. stuff and it wasn't until like day three or four living up there or just visiting that I was like does it smell like pulp is it going to smell like pulp up here all the time is this part of why this house was cheap and this is part of why nobody built a deck on this side like I just had this moment of being like oh does it is it going to stink up here all the time which it actually doesn't but if you go down into town the parking lot of the Walmart always smells like a pulp mill And this is not like a burn on Walmart It's just there's something about the way That the convection or the air movement is That if Anytime I'm in the parking lot of that Walmart Which is more than you might think I'm like oh it smells like a pulp mill right now And then thankfully there's something about Being up where I live It doesn't waft up that way somehow

And you don't know what that smell is coming from?

No there's a pulp mill there

Oh it is actually a pulp mill that is nearby It is the pulp mill in Longview, Washington The air just sort of gets trapped in that one area.

Yeah, I think it just settles in a certain way. But, like, every time I go down there, I'm like, oh, yeah, there is a pulp mill in town. There definitely is, and I smell it right now in this parking lot. But then when I go up to where I'm living, thankfully it doesn't – well, it didn't. Let's see what happens with this cardboard situation, Andrew.

Yeah, the cardboard, I'm guessing, will be fine. I think there's something specifically about pulping that involves – I don't know. I'm totally just bullshitting here. But, like, my guess is when you think about pulping, you think about, like, they're probably putting stuff in there to pulp it up. But by the time they're creating something more solid, like boxes, I feel like, because I think it said it was a box factory, right? Yeah, cardboard box factory. Cardboard box factory. But in other words.

Definitely Milhouse's dad works there.

Yeah, he's a big wheel. Sure.

I mean, again, you know, it takes all kinds. And we, Lord knows, I recently availed myself of many cardboard boxes, but boy, actually, you know what? Cardboard box factory does not sound like the most uninteresting place to work. No, not at all. Not at all. I worked at a firebox factory for a while. I started from the perspective of being like, God, a cardboard box, but no, there's actually a lot, there's a lot to be interested in about that.

Yeah, I think so. I think, I think production, generally speaking, is kind of interesting. You know, like, and that, those things had their day on Instagram or TikTok, right? Maybe they still are having their day. like just like hey watch these oreos get produced or whatever right it's those industrial videos where you just get to see things coming off of industrial um uh what do you call them conveyor belts or what have you production lines yeah production lines i mean like big shout out to

mr rogers right wasn't that the first place like i remember there was the episode where you saw them making crayons that rings a bell to me my mind because they start as a liquid which is not Shocking to people who are smart. And then there was one, I can't remember if this was Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers, where it was a saxophone being made. Oh, I don't remember that at all. And it was just this sheet of copper that gets stamped into being one side of the saxophone from some kind of industrial press. And it just, I mean, that just absolutely blew my mind and stayed with me. Now, what I watch a lot on TikTok are people often, I think, in, like, in India and other parts of, I guess, do we call it the subcontinent? Is that, do we say that anymore?

I don't know. I'm not the right person to ask that question.

Anyway there's a lot of folks It would appear that it's like probably India Pakistan Things in sort of that region Where folks are making stuff In these really Super like kind of artisanal And skilled ways but they're just making like Bowls right like a metal bowl And you watch the guy Who just does this just shaves off The rim of the metal bowl On some kind of spinner thing that he's using And you're just like I never thought about the rim of a bowl yeah i never considered that there is a person at least in that part of the world and maybe it's mechanized in the states or whatever but like i never i don't i'm in this room i'm in andrew right now i'm looking at a hundred things that somebody or some machine had to carefully sort of you know deal with and i never think about it yeah i never think about how these things got to be in this shape yeah you ever watch the videos of people

making like food in in parts of the world that you and i have never been often in like really large sort of at large scale or whatever it's just absolutely mesmerizing oh i'm big on like um

again i'm gonna i'm guessing here but it would appear to be somewhere in india or potentially india or pakistan but like just street vendors and the food they make oh okay yeah maybe that's what i'm seeing and like somebody just like with their phone just like filming like the start to finish of something that somebody's going to sell you know for who knows how much and like a i'm always super hungry for it by the time they're done and b i'm just like man this is so cool and it's always like the reason i think it might be india it's it's a you know some of the folks that are making the food and the folks in the background and also they seem to be very populated places and they're just like the constant thrum of the traffic and you can just hear people talking and yelling in the background and then the somebody's just like in their little you know cart or whatever just making this like amazingly involved bite for somebody you know that you're just presumably walking on the street in in wherever and you pay whatever you pay for this And then you take a bite and you walk on. You never think about it again. And some guy or gal was standing there just like, you know, putting this thing together with way more teal. Maybe they're turning it on because somebody's filming them. But the process of making street food in India just is fascinating to me.

I was watching one the other day of somebody and they were wearing like a green and yellow. I remember like kind of a green and yellow shirt with a visor. And they were taking like a foot long piece of bread and then laying down like salami on it. And then, like, some turkey. And then they put some cheese on it. And they said to the person, do you want this toasted? And the person said yes. So then they put it in a little oven. And you know what? You know where? I think I might have been at Subway. Oh, I was going to say Jimmy John's. Yeah. Anyway, fascinating stuff.

Have I told you? I mean, I know I have. I know I've brought this up on the show before. But I really, I feel really kind of double-crossed by the branding of Jimmy John's. Because the sandwiches are no longer so fast that I'm freaking.

Oh.

well it's nice that you stopped freaking i guess it's good for it's better for me honestly i couldn't my blood pressure couldn't handle it yeah but there was a moment in time where because you know the ads were like sandwiches so fast you'll freak or something yeah and there really was a moment in time where like you would walk into jimmy john's and you would order the sandwich and like you would not even be done saying like you know with pickles and they'd be like ding your sandwich is up and i feel like it was a big point of pride for the company literally happened

to me the first time I went into one you know this right like I did not know that that's what they were known for I just knew they were a sandwich shop on the ave and so I went in there and I ordered a sandwich and as I'm paying another guy comes and throws a sandwich down next to the register and they said here's your sandwich and I said that I said that's not that's not mine I'm just paying for my now or something and the guy looked at me he couldn't tell I think he couldn't tell if I was joking he said no we're just really fast here that's like what we do and I was like oh okay like that's how I found out right and I feel like that was a big part of the shtick and

you know I can wait five minutes for a sandwich I'm my life is not that interesting or busy but I was kind of used to walking in and literally like by the time the h was out of my mouth from the word sandwich somebody is handing me a thing and that is no longer the deal there like it takes about as much time as subway or sometimes longer you know what I'm realizing as I'm saying this out loud it totally has to do with probably the pandemic and online ordering oh yeah so when i walk into a jimmy's john like i think i'm the only customer but there's probably you know many like online orders that have gone in or something but it's now regularly the case where

i go in order my sandwich what's that staffing too probably the pandemic kind of also obviously shook up the workforce a great deal so it could be online orders you're not seeing and just fewer

people on on hand also i think jimmy john's i have never encountered a jimmy john's employee who wasn't just absolutely lovely um but i do think it's the number one place to to work if you also would just like to ride your bike most of the time what do you notice like i don't go to jimmy john's much no so i don't know so they're um they're one of the few food companies that i can think of that still uses a lot of bike oh yes yes yes i thought you're talking about the style

of the people there oh i see what you're saying yeah yeah and and and again really and truly great

service like really good delivery and the the only when i was living in an apartment the only person who could ever figure out how to get to my actual door was always like a jimmy johns guy like like spandex that racing hat like he just like he just rolled off of the set of breaking away and then like the shoes with like the the plastic bump on the kind of front part of the shoe and he always be like hey here's your sandwich i'd be like oh wow you made it up here that you don't have a fob he's like yeah i just took the stairs or something so it's like very very good service but also i feel like if i just liked riding my bike a lot and i needed to make some dough i think i would work at jimmy john's because it's sort of like you're getting paid in a way to ride your bike around town like uh like kevin bacon in the movie quicksilver i've never seen the movie but

yeah i do feel like we used to see more couriers more bike couriers than we do now oh yeah when i

worked in downtown seattle um i would see them like when i worked in the columbia tower when i was a traffic reporter you every time you got in the elevator there'd be somebody a cyclist like a courier and they would have like um that tube that you put like

architectural plans in and they just be in the elevator and they have that little hat on oh you

know why i mean that's obvious because if like it's a tube it means it's drawings or schematics or something i guess we're just using the internet we're using the tiny little cyclists inside the

internet that is it's a series of cyclists that's what they say i believe um this is so not going to pay off andrew but because i delayed us getting started on the show today uh with my new favorite musician can i just quickly play you a teeny bit of this dog i think maybe an italian greyhound named lemon okay off of a tiktok feed uh somebody named olivia um who goes by the handle f i i hope i'm spelling a swear here f i c k l e v i uh l e l i v okay fickle live what am i missing here F-I-C-K-E-L-I-V

I'm not spelling it out I'm not sure but we can go with Olivia

I wanted people to be able to find this person that was all the first video that I saw was just this person this woman sitting on her floor playing guitar and then her very cute dog just like pawing at her guitar and what I realized was she has been for some period of time training her Italian greyhound I'm just going to keep going with that breed. I don't know if that's really what kind of dog it is, with treats to occasionally hit the strings of her guitar. So this is kind of where it started, okay? That's the dog, by the way. That's the dog again. The dog is not doing the finger picking. You can hear the nails, right? You can hear the... Yeah, the dog has the nails. Which, by the way, I also like how chill Olivia is about her guitar. Yeah, right. Because I'm like, is that bad for it? So this is more of the dog learning. She's giving the dog a treat every time the dog strums. And then eventually we get to Blackbird. I want to clarify, this is not the dog. this is olivia but still that was the dog at the end nice and then you get into weezer i think this is the apotheosis of lemon the italian greyhound playing oh whoops there was a little extra recording so i'm gonna play this for you again this is like half of this is the dog by the way not the hard part but the the strumming is pretty in time now it helps that olivia is forming the chords with her fingers but still sure that's the dog that was the dog too I don't think the dog's drums on the final command, but anyway, that's, oh yeah, that's Lemon. That's Lemon the dog playing guitar. I just wanted to, I just wanted to bless your timeline with that.

I was expecting a dog going, you know what I mean?

That is a whole other, that's an entire corner of TikTok, let me tell you.

There's a right way to rock and a wrong way to roll. You can't just listen to your soul Just remember that life is number one You can't be having so much fun Just remember that life is much fun You can't be number one

I almost made a Blursday mistake

you almost blursed up

I almost blursed up the blursday section I just went back to my email quickly to make sure I didn't miss anybody and sure as heck I did I'm going to start with this person because they might have even gotten their blursday wish in first and that's why it was so far down the list this is from Elizabeth who says pardon me I'm just preparing myself I was preparing my body and my mind and my spirit for this

whoa whoa whoa

whoa whoa wow

Why did that happen, Andrew?

I don't know. It woke me up, though. We should do a show. That's good. Yeah. Here we go. Elizabeth says, I want to wish...

Why was Doogie playing at that volume?

I have no idea. You shouldn't have Doogie playing at all.

That's what makes no sense. I did not even activate that sound. Has that just been sitting there coiled like a cobra?

Do you think the email segment is getting jealous of the Blur's Day segment and it's acting out? It's very possible. It was acting out, Andrew. It's the only thing that makes sense. This makes sense. That seems like something you would say. Elizabeth says, I want to wish the happiest Blur's Day to the most awesome 10 I know in real life. My mom, Paula, she has been listening consistently since the radio days and always kept me up to date on what was going on in the TBTL-iverse when I had to declare bankruptcy. That's, by the way, TBTL bankruptcy, I believe. If not, that's not a financial matter. I believe so, yeah. She is by far the coolest mom a kid could ask for, and I'm so grateful to have her. Cute. Happy Blur's Day, Paul.

I'm just going to say it. Let's get physical.

Hmm. Interesting choice there. Adrian says... There's just a lot going on with this computer. I don't understand today, Andrew. Adrian says, wishing my bestest bestie, Julie June, the happiest of Blur's days. Hey, y'all said my name. I admire your creativity, nerve, and humor, and appreciate your support and friendship. We both have so much in common. We love soup. We love the outdoors. We love snow peas and talking and not talking. We can talk or not talk forever and still find things to not talk about.

And I'm going to get all anecdotal on you.

Happy Blursday, Julie June. Cute. This is Julie, a friend that I've met several times now. I met Adrian and Julie both in Hawaii, coincidentally, when we were visiting.

Oh, right. Oh, wait, I think, yeah, so I think I... You were hanging with them. I mean, I know them both, but I think that I saw them both at the 4,000th episode. You most certainly did, yeah.

And I was razzing Julie a little bit.

It was the one picture from that night that I didn't feel terrible about myself. Which is why it's the one picture I put on Instagram, or like re-grammed, or whatever people do.

But Julie's like a dancer, like a professional dancer, and so obviously has tons of talent there. And now, like, I'm watching on Instagram And I was giving her a little bit of a hard time for this Like, now she's just decided I'm going to be a stand-up comedian On the Tiki-Taki And she's going into clubs Around the big city of Portland, Oregon Just, like, I just watched somebody on Instagram one day say Hey, I'm going to try to be a stand-up Or I'm going to do an open mic And now suddenly she's a stand-up comedian And I'm over here I'm just like, honestly It gives me a feeling of jealousy That somebody can just be like I want to try this out oh, I like this, oh, and I'm good at this, and now I can just stand up in front of people and make people laugh, just like that. And I'm already talented in other ways. It does sort of seem like leave a little something for other people, you know? You think you're a little jealous, babe? Oh, I know a lot about jealousy because... People have been jealous of me for my whole life. Anyway, in all seriousness, congratulations on that, Julie, and happy birthday.

Itch.

Marika says, happy belated Blursday to Biagio from your wife. So I don't know if you recall this, But we did get a shout out to Biagio last week in the Blur's Day segment. And Marika is now saying, happy belated Blur's Day from your wife, who's an even bigger dummy than Justice. Don't tell him I said that. Wanted to add a few comments regarding your role situation. This is not one but two weeks late sending in your blurs. I swear I love you more than my brother does. Happy Blur's Day. Just study it out and you'll see. Here we got this from Beth who says, Would you please wish my husband, Brent, of 25 years, a happy Blur's Day? This year he surprised me by sending me a Blur's Day message that I had hoped for for many years. So I'm sending one back. You face. Who are you facing? Happy Blur's Day, Brent. From Beth. This is going to get confusing. Andrew says, now this is not written by me. This is written by somebody else named Andrew. But also I am saying it because I'm reading it and my name is also Andrew. The word that comes to mind is ludicrous. So Andrew says, and also Andrew says, Happy Blur's Day to Laurel. Don't call me Yanni. I've been waiting to repay the favor since you called out my Blur's Day in January, and it's finally here. You are a wonderful mother to Grant and Celeste, a skilled pediatric nurse and a loving wife partner. Looking forward to continuing our journey together. Happy Blur's Day, Laurel. Yanni. No, not Yanni.

Not Yanni. No, not Yanni. I made that joke, I think. recently, yes. Pops up that exact... I don't know if it was that Laurel, but I said this is where I usually say my Yanni joke, and now I know I shouldn't have done that.

Priscilla says, happy belated Blurzy to Marshall in Amsterdam. Oh, Marshall. We know Marshall. We do. I got to visit him. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison? Priscilla says, I got to visit him this year, and he was such a gracious host, from giving us a private boat tour of the canals to showing us how Dutch he is by correctly pronouncing the G in Van Gogh. Oh, wow.

No, s***, Sherlock.

He really should start his own tour, his own touring gig. Hope he has an awesome time touring.

touring breweries and wineries in Mord. Sorry for all the stumbles on that one. Priscilla, happy Blur's Day to Marshall. Cute. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

Not only does that sound kind of disgusting to me, it sounds unhealthy.

I didn't activate that Terry Gross sound, but I'm really happy you played it.

I thought you were just jamming. Go ahead, do it. I'm out of Blur's Days. Go ahead. Okay, you ready?

Let's just let it go. Okay, ready? We're going to start with Terry Gross. and hopefully the levels will be not totally all over the place.

I seriously thought we were just jamming there and I was loving it.

I know. I should have taken credit for it. The universe just delivered that Terry Gross drop because it was the next thing.

Not only does that sound kind of disgusting to me, it sounds unhealthy.

It's Tom Pondarly,

king of the dirty song.

Get out of here.

You don't know Blink-182?

I'm in a glass case of emotion. Here come the .jpegs. I saved you a trip to the beach.

I don't know what those words mean. Are you in the middle of some sort of aneurysm?

If you want to talk, I've got two years and they're tuned to the listening station.

If there was bedbugs, we would have seen it.

Oh, I love that video.

If there was bedbugs, we would have seen it.

I don't know why I load that twice. Probably the first one was... Anyway. Golly, that's fun.

That is fun. That's tomorrow's show. Just that.

Yeah, it is.

Happy Blur's Day, everybody. Holy steroids. Don't eat that one.

holy steroids i don't know i'm just looking at things that are in in this stupid stupid itunes

i love that that we get to the weird ones there because like right because it's just whatever is

checkmarked and typically what happens is i un checkmark them if i'm going to try to play them because i'm worried about them auto firing but then every once in a while you know i just let

it go and it's just like a succulent chinese meal oh he was giving a rest you know maybe we shouldn't

say just anything that pops into our heads oh hey king of rock you're out of your depth this sounds routine i'm sure nothing untoward will happen

boy that pimple really became kind of a third character in my relationship what the hell was i talking about i don't know all right i gotta get out of here okay all right

yeah sorry you have places to be people to see okay thanks for listening everyone we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you i will be allegedly back in the pacific northwest so we'll see you then in the meantime have a great thursday take care of yourselves enjoy your day off mariners learn how to run a pickle and please remember no mountain too tall

and good luck to all and get this going this is a main mix for tbtl the date is thursday the 24th of august stand by

power out